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[tdinizcolas]

Leaving Brazil and come to the US was a big, life-changing decision, but one I do not regret. The kind of artistic creation I like, with pure entertainment in mind and little political connection, is borderline impossible to be developed in Brazil. Also, the kind of broad, international appeal I intend to reach requires me to be in the USA, who is still the world's largest exporter of cultural products. These 12 months living here, studying the unique quirks of the North American legal system and company culture.

Through all the classes, I have learned a little bit more about how I am supposed to create a company with my fictional mobile game company as a sample project. And that, plus all the important tips from my professors were of ultimate help. This last month gave me a chance to fine tune the final details of everything I studied, and also to learn more about what companies and investors in America are really looking for in a company.

In particular, all the comments and criticisms on my ability to present my ideas to a potential investors or employer. My personal style tends to be a bit eccentric and non-standard, and the usual Corporate America style is still a little bit alien for me, but I believe these classes and my professor's tips will be absolutely fundamental for me to develop a new career in here, after a long time as an art critic.

Now, I see myself getting ready to start a brand new life, with several paths ahead of me that I need to carefully plan, and I am lucky to have a couple months to make a final decision.

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Managing a company is something that I grew up learning. My mother has a bachelor's in mathematics and worked in a bank until her retirement. She also inherited a farm that she managed and taught me how to manage since I was a little kid, and once we decided to sell the farm and invest in real estate, I have been managing my own share of the rents, since my early 20s.

But learning how to manage in the United States is very different than we did in Brazil. There is a complete mental shift in how everything works, standards and practices, financials, taxes, everything. I always suspected that that particular elementwould give me trouble when I eventually decide to open my own company in this country, and from what I have been studying in this course, I am right. Careful mathematical planning is fundamental, andconvincing someone to invest on my ideas is fundamental, especially when considering that, as a foreigner, getting bank loans and/or state and government financial help will be difficult, if not completely impossible.

As such, I already expected dealing with lots of numbers and research when I took this particular subject, but the tools that I was given to work with, like the books and the sample spreadsheet have been extremely helpful, and it is likely that I will keep a copy of both with me in some cloud storage, so I can always come back to them when I need to.

I always knew that moving to the United States to start a new life and open a business would be difficult, one of the biggest challenges I could ever face, but I do feel ready, with the tools and needed teachings to accomplish this almost impossible goal, and succeed in this new home.

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Through my years working as a journalist and creator of content, I saw many different stories involving the distribution and publishing of artistic content, some of which I just watched and reported, and some of them I actually took part in.

As a journalist, I specialized in independent and underground art, be it music, books, games or my biggest area of expertise, films. And I interviewed and hosted many artists, each one of them finding their own way of making their creations known to the world. One comic book creator, Francisco Marcatti Jr., was proud of printing and selling all his comic books by himself, in a completely artisanal process that he even documented in a video, that can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3On3X2-KFIw. Another one I interviewed in person, Lacarmelio, was known for printing his own monthly comic book, Celton, and sell it on bus stops and street lights in the city, and he made enough money to make a living and raise his children doing that, until passing. Another one of them, a close friend of mine, is a writer and RPG game designer who got famous on the independent game scene in Brazil, and now publishes his games in small scale through crowdfunding and, while he still has a day job, manages to publish between 3 and 5 books every year. Those three has been creating and selling in small scale, but managed to succeed in their own way.

Not all stories I witnessed were as successful, though. Many filmmakers I interviewed were trapped in the festival circuit, unable to bring their creations to the great public. Writers that had amazing works, but were stuck selling books on their own barely functional websites. I myself worked for a small WebTV where getting a big enough viewship was a struggle, but I managed to make it work. Still, the biggest crash and burn I saw when it comes down to publishing and distribution was one that happened very close, and that I tried, but was unable to avoid.

I used to work for a website/publisher called HQManiacs. They were a group of friends of mine that created a site for reporting and reviewing comics and films, and eventually became a small publisher. I was invited to invest and be one of the partners, but refused. Their first contact in the comics industry was with Robert Kirkman, creator of the original The Walking Dead comics. In fact, The Walking Dead was their second published title, in a time when the distribution consisted of myself filling up the trunk of my car with copies of the comics to give the stores in consignation, for me to pick them up in 3 months. Through the years, they released their comics exclusively to comic book shops and special bookstores, but the owner had a dream of publishing comics on newsstands, like we grew up with in the 1980’s. He saw a chance when The Walking Dead became the super popular series we all know. A chance to publish a monthly comic book on newsstands. Both myself and his partners tried to convince him that even the biggest comic book publishers in Brazil were running away from the newsstands, and that a small company like ours would not survive, but he was too stubborn. In just a few months, both his partners had sold their share of the publisher and left, and I was only writing news and quick reports, concentrating my efforts on the TV station I was on. And in just a year and a half, the publisher went under.

Publishing and making your work available within your budget and in an efficient manner is fundamental for an entertainment company to survive. Being humble and knowing how and when to aim higher is the most important skill here, and finding out how to make your work available is a must, specially today, when there is so much content that it is easy for your creations to go unnoticed.

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When I was in college, I never expected that Laws and Legislation would be my second-best grades in the entire course, but it was. Even though I have several lawyers in my immediate family, that is a subject that I never particularly liked, or respected that much, to be absolutely honest. But it seems like I might have some innate understanding of it.

It did happen again here. The extreme litigious culture of the United States is always something that bothered me, one of the reasons I was reluctant to move into this country earlier. Lawyers, the police and the US army are still what my nightmares are made of while I live here, and I was sure this would be a subject that, while absolutely important, I would have trouble with. Thinking in terms of laws and loopholes does not come easy to me, I am much more of an honor and principles kind of man, a dying breed, sadly. But I have been doing surprisingly well once again.

I honestly can’t say where this surprising affinity for laws and legislation came from. I understand its importance, its function, its reason to be, but it never feels natural to me. And yet, it somehow just works. My biggest challenge is not to understand the ideas, the laws and the fundamentals, but to train myself to see them around me all the time. This entire EBMS course has been a big eye-opener to me, forcing me to face several aspects of the Entertainment Market that I never exactly liked, but that I know I will have to work on and deal with if I am to make my dreams come true.

I always liked to think that a good reputation and honesty are the most important things, but in the world we live in, a good lawyer and good contracts, perfectly written, are what make the real difference in the end. And with years of journalism teaching me how dirty this business can really be, sometimes that can be my only real protection.

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Learning about PAM

To me, the last two weeks of the class were the most important. While learning to manage artists and how to fight for their interests, my main idea is to create my own projects and, being a lousy salesman through my entire life, a better understanding of licensed products and merchandising is welcome. I knew that merchandising was important to an artist’s income, but I did not imagine it to be so fundamental to the financial health of an artist/product before seeing some of the numbers I researched during this particular class, and this makes me want to rethink several of my future projects.

On another hand, even though managing an artist is not my main goal, it is something I will have to deal while working in my own production company, and I may end up adopting some new actor or writer under my wing as a secondary project. Treating an employee nice has always been my ideas. Even though I can be a demanding boss, I don’t see myself as an unfair or abusive one, and treating those who work for me the best I possibly can is something I want to do on pure principle. It is still not something I will focus on, though, but I might include someone on my team if it comes to that.

Ultimately, this was another important side of the business I read about but actually knew little about, and something I will have to work better. And in hindsight, if I had known this information, my own TV show in Brazil might have been significantly more successful and profitable than it was. I have seen, in my days working as a journalist, that often artists pay too much attention to their craft and not enough on the financial, business elements of show business, and while I did try my best not to fall on the same trap, I might have committed those mistakes as well, in a lesser scale. Luckily, it’s still time to start over and fix everything.

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Learning to Negotiate

The Negotiation and Deal-Making class was interesting to me. In Brazil, the negotiations are much more informal, even in larger companies. So, noticing how strict and specific we have to be during the entire negotiation was a reality shock. On the other hand, having covered the entertainment industry for a long time as a journalist did give me some notions on the maze of legal procedures and sometimes absurd levels of litigation that the American law allows. But if I am ever to open my production company in the future, as I plan to do eventually, contract negotiating in the United States is something I must absolutely dominate.

Surprisingly, though, the ADR week was my favorite. My entire life, my friends usually called me to be the middle man when they have any argument, because I have a reputation of being honest to the point of being rude sometimes. I can actually see myself making a living like that, as a professional Arbitrator or Mediator. That is a form of conflict resolution I would use the most. For a business and a country with such a reputation for excessive litigation, the emphasis on peaceful conflict resolution was indeed refreshing. And seeing a clear escalation of ADR, from Mediation to Arbitration to Trial only as a last resort, is something I can absolutely include in any contract I may write and/or sign on the future.

All and all, I am very satisfied with this particular class, something I know I will make heavy use in my future living and working in the United States, and something I know I do have to research even deeper during the next few months if I am to have any chance of surviving in the entertainment world here, and it is something I would absolutely love to get better.

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I was never any good at marketing. I lost many opportunities in Brazil because of that. In fact, one of the co-hosts for my old tv show,a lousy comedian, got a much better job than myself after the end of the show precisely because he knew how to sell his ideas much more accurately than me. Learning how to market my creations is still not easy, but at least I know some techniques to, at least, plan an effective publicity campaign. Make no mistake about it, marketing is still, and probably will always be, my main weakness, but at least I have some theoretical knowledge to try and mitigate it. Most importantly, I now have the tools to know how to judge the skills of an eventual professional marketer I will hire to coordinate my campaigns. That is not the exact goal I set to accomplish for this particular subject, but it is what I was able to achieve within the short time I had to study. And I firmly believe that this is a subject I will need to come back afterwards for an in depth study. What I am proud is that I was able to improve my lousy first week on this subject, work through all my difficulties and remain here, even succeeding, in a way. It has been very hard to do this course, leave everything I ever build behind, my family and friends, and start fresh in a country many do not want me to be in. It has been too expensive and to hard a task for me to quit right now. But in the end,I always come back to the cattle farm and the lessons my grandfather Walter taught me. Life isn't easy, and the world will not go light on you. But if you toughen up and learn from all this, your life can be good.

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About Entertainment Business Finance

Through all my career in Brazil, both writing for websites and hosting my Web TV Show, I worked with independent and underground producers and artists in general. And one sad thing that I saw way too often was that they had so much talent and skill, but so little interest on the business side of their art, and most of them had severe financial problems, completely unable to make a living from their art. Many of them were even proud of saying that they were only interested in the purity of their art, anddidn’t want to be “sell outs”.  

And because of that, I know better than most that, if I want to be an independent creator, and keep control of my art and everything I create, I must learn how to manage and make a profit from my art. Knowing how to control my own company is not selling out. Neither is wanting people to see and enjoy what I create. And if I am to have my own production company in the US, I needed to learn all these steps.

I have some knowledge of financial management, something I learned from my mother, who graduated in Math, worked in a bank her entire life and managed the farm my grandfather divided between her and her brothers. But managing a production company is a completely different monster, the laws and permissions here are different than the ones I grew up with and studied. I knew nothing about the financial marked in the United States, about the mechanics of opening a company here, all the financial and legal requirements. And although I still have much to learn, especiallywhen it comes to paperwork, now I know a little bit better what I need to know in order to finance my company. I still need to gain experience, to know the insides of the entertainment industry here better, butknowing how to make a financial plan will be a fundamental skill for my production company to be successful.

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The importance of Brand Storytelling

I always knew that marketing and branding is not one of my strengths. I can create concepts and ideas, but selling them and making people interested in what I have doesn't come easy to me. So, I always knew this particular subject would be one I would struggle, but absolutely needed to learn in order to be successful.

And while it is still not something that comes natural to me, having some planes and schemes to help me at least start to plan something. I have some idea now on what I need to create a publicity campaign, something that I can show to a professional marketing expert to work around. I am aware I will still need a lot of help with that, because there are so many concepts I have yet to completely understand.

The Lynda classes, specially the Chapman video class and Worksheet is probably the thing that will help me the most, because it gives me a tool I can understand to plan my publicity campaigns, to create a stable story line for my company and for my projects, and elaborate a definitive business image. Before that, I always believed in letting my work talk for itself, trust my research and my skills to present my capabilities, and that is something that limited my professional growth in Brazil, and would do the same in the USA.

This class was something that I really needed for my ideal recreation, to restart my career and rebuild my professional image as someone more versatile and not as connected to horror movies as before. And that is what I needed the most.

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Learning Team Management

For over 8 years, I had my own team I'm Brazil, with whom I produced my own show, my own content. It was small and cheap, but I made it work. I also coordinated the entire night shift on that TV station, managing other shows, other producers, controlling time schedules and overwhelming egos. And I had to learn all that by doing, in the hot seat, as the troubles came towards me.

But now I feel I have better tools to deal with it. I learned about my natural tendency for Lean Management, for assembling a motley crew of skilled talents and find a way of making them work together. But now, I can temper it with better project planning, with an adequate table of tasks and timeframes, something I controlled only by pure intuition before. I have the resources to assemble a more effective timetable, identify the needed resources and see all the pieces of the puzzle before placing pieces together.

Eventually, I plan to open my own production company, so I can put all my ideas out there, be it books, videogames, TV content, movies, even tabletop games. But even as my ideas grow and the budgets and resources become harder to manage, I know I will still have a small core of trusty partners, each with their small teams if they need it, and I will still work always with as little people as possible, keeping a close eye on everyone and offering a friendly word and a shoulder to them in return. I AMa Lean Manager. I like working with small groups, where everyone has equal attention, where I know the name and face of everyone involved. Where nobody is just a number lost in a HR database. And after this class, I know now how to be in the eye of the storm that is a small group, identify their needs and wants and find a way to incorporate those in our working structure.

Because if there is a lesson that I learned and that everyone should apply when working is that your working group is the most important thing on your workplace. Even more than the project itself. Projects can fail for several different reasons, but if you have a group of people that work well together and enjoy doing so, that are satisfied with the job and with your leadership, everything else will come with time.

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Leadership Journal

After this last month studying both Maxwell and Greene’s ways of leadership, I find myself pending more to the Maxwell side. While I do respect Greene’s view of how to accomplish your goals, his world view is a little too Machiavellian for my personal tastes.

At some moments during the classes, I kept going back to my paternal grandfather, a tailor that was once chosen to open a new clothes factory for one of the biggest men prêt-à-porter fashion houses in Brazil, but quit his job as a manager when he found out the level of corruption that particular unit was involved in. My other grandfather, farmer, and my mother, who took on managing the farm after retiring from the bank, were also extremely fair, straight as an arrow business people, and even though I am aware of how dirty the entertainment business world is, I just can’t see myself being as ruthless as Greene wants.

I also have my small, but significative experience with my own show, managing my own crew, where, somehow, even though they were all my close friends long before being hired, I managed to keep my authority as the boss during the entire duration of the program, and even managed to fire some close friends and still keep the friendship going, just as strong than before, a huge break on Greene’s 2ndLaw.

Essentially, I see myself as a manager and producer that keeps his eyes open, knowing that many others do not care about moral standards. I won’t need to bring myself to their level, but will be ready for when they make a move. Maybe this will not make me a billionaire, but no money in the world can buy peace of mind. And as long as I can make my projects happen, and help my dreams and the dreams of those working for me come true somehow, that will be payment enough.

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Dean, J. (2018). In BrainyQuote. Retrieved August 5, 2018, from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/jimmy_dean_131287?src=t_inspirational

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The PDF for my Timeline on tumblr

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Brown, H. J. (2018). In BrainyQuote. Retrieved July 29, 2018, from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_jackson_brown_jr_382774?src=t_inspirational

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Charles, S. (2018). In BrainyQuote. Retrieved July 22, 2018, from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/charles_r_swindoll_388332?src=t_motivational

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This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill    Fifteen percent concentrated power of will    Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain    And a hundred percent reason to remember the name

Shinoda, M. (2005). Remember the Name. On The Rising Tied [CD]. Fort Minor (Group). Warner Bros & Machine Shop

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My journey

I chose to start my life over, leave my country, my family and everything I built to come to the United States to follow my dreams, dreams that I held back for the last 15 years, afraid of paying the price I would have to. But now, I am free to start fresh, make new friends, go through new experiences, learn new things, and finally accomplish all the goals I had and was too afraid or too unable to go through. Create my own art, and help others to create their art and make a living out of it. It was not an easy choice, I left everything I knew behind, but it is never too late to turn your life around, and I decided to turn mine.  

In this master's degree in Entertainment Business I am taking at Full Sail, I intend to learn more about the business part of art, how I can make a living with my ideas, make a profit out of them, protect my creations, and find partners that are willing to go with me on this journey of making independent art, no strings attached, each of us doing what we always wanted, but working together for a bigger goal. And I do know that, at first, I will have to find someone to sponsor me, to mentor me in this new world, but I do hope that, in the end, I will be able to create my own company, just to have the independency I always dreamt of, creating my games and movies and comics and events as I seem fit, for the public, and just the public, to watch and judge if it is worth of their money and attention or not. Because I believe that art is for the people to admire, always.